Table of Contents issue

[mdesigns]

Hi,

I am studying Affinity publisher online, and currently on a challenge to create a book layout. I have an issue that the online video tutorial didn't run into although I followed the same steps.

 

Why is my TOC appearing this way with each page number appearing as a chapter heading? Please let me know if you need further info to troubleshoot. The page numbers appear as headings also! How do I fix this problem?

 

My steps:

Inserted a Frame Text

Ticked References

Then on the "Table of contents" panel, I clicked on the 3 documents icon.

[firstdefence]

looks like you have attached a style to the page numbers.

[MikeTO]

That's exactly it, your page numbers use a text style included in the TOC.

Check which paragraph styles are used by the TOC, they are listed in the panel below the options. Then check your page numbers to see which paragraph style they use.

Generally, you'd format your page numbers with a unique paragraph style such as "Footer" or "Header" or "Page Number". Some people prefer not to use styles for headers and footers but I use text styles for everything, it's up to you.

Cheers

[mdesigns]

Thanks guys! Much appreciated.

Yes, a HEADING 1 was applied to the page numbers and I don't remember having it there. But then, I didn't look at the styles when initially setting it up.

So, I have gone ahead and done the following:

1. Updated each page number to No Style

2. Also, used a new Text Style called, "Page Number" to apply the style quickly

3. Restarted the numbering (page 9 was changed to page 1 onwards)

Noticed the following:

a. Although I updated the Master A with the No Style, it did not carry over to all the page numbers. So, I had to manually go through 30 pages to make the updates.

b. I am still getting 2-page numbers as content titles in the ToC. Page 8 is an image page and page 29 is an author page, both of which have Master removed. 

How do I fix this now?

[MikeTO]

Go to those pages and look at the Layers panel - there will be text somewhere on those pages that is formatted with Heading 1. For example, it might be text behind the cover image. If those pages had been created with a master and you later applied no master to them, the master objects may have been migrated to the document page. You can just delete them when you find in the Layers panel.

Good luck.

[mdesigns]

@MikeTO Please see the attached screenshot. Did you mean that panel and layers? Not sure if you can see but the bottom one says, page "8" even though the next page is 1 (after updating from 9 previously). What exactly do I delete?

 

[firstdefence]

Click on Page 8 and then look at the layers panel, the layers panel will show you everything on that page. If page 8 has an image it will show an image layer, if it also has text it will show a text layer, if there is a master page associated with that page it will show the master page and everything on that master page. 

You can click on each of the layers displayed for that page in the layers panel and then look at the Text Styles panel to see if a text style has been allocated to that text. From there you can remove that text style or change it to a style that will not be shown by the TOC panel.

Do the same with page 29 and any other pages that show as a number.

Just to note, there is nothing wrong with having text styles allocated to page numbers, they just need to be unique to page numbers so that you can uncheck that text style in the TOC panel.

[mdesigns]

Thank you @firstdefence and @MikeTO! Your suggestions worked!

Step 1: Click on the page in the Pages panel

Step 2: Open the Master in the Layer's panel and see if the page is shown within it. In my case, it was.

Step 3: Unlock the layer.

Step 4: Go to Layer > Master Page > Edit Detached

Step 5: Back in the Layers panel, and remove the selected page layer within the Master's parent layer.

Step 6: Click on the Finish message at the top to confirm changes.

Step 7: Update the TOC in the TOC panel. I lost my formats (font, size) on the TOC when updated.

Screenshots below if it helps.